Now I know that I was wrong. To be a good teacher you need to be so much more than an expert in your subject. You need to:
- Be willing to be hated (Remember that your job is not to make the students like you. It is to help them do well in their studies and grow up to be good people)
- Develop a new face/personality (your face have to be in a permanent frown in class - otherwise, your students won't take you seriously)
- Patience is important!! (But you must never let your students know that you are patient. You have to be the most unreasonable, demanding teacher you can be in order to discipline the students - the students must be so frightened of you that they are afraid of stepping out of line)
- You got to be firm (if you cannot manage the class and get them to respect you enough to listen, no matter how good you are at a subject, you will never be able to teach them anything)
- Students respond well to clear instructions. Even the naughtiest of kids love instructions. They need step to step instructions. Never give vague instructions. NEVER leave the kids without instructions. Even if you have nothing to say, make something up. They need to hear instructions.
- Every child has this inner longing to be disciplined. It is only when you discipline them, that they know that you care about them.
- Never lower your expectations to meet your students'. Pressure them to rise up to meet your expectations.
- You must believe in your students and be willing to enforce discipline on them. If you do not discipline them and let them run around like monkeys. They will take that as their identity. Enforce the correct identity on them - good students. Pressure them to rise up to it.
- Teachers get so much respect that they often don't deserve. Every personal small act of kindness is blown out of proportion. So value your words and take every opportunity to encourage and talk to the students individually.
- If you put in your best effort and your heart into teaching, your students will feel it. This will inspire them to work harder themselves. Nothing is more encouraging then seeing someone who believes in you.
I have been told that I am not teaching material and that I must face up to that humbly and accept that not everyone is born for teaching. Maybe they are right. There are some aspects to this profession that I just cannot stand. I cannot stand putting up an angry face all day. I can stand shouting all day long. And I can't stand getting all kinds of unconstructive criticism from people who have this solidified bad impression of me.
If teaching just involves teaching and helping the students. I would very confidently say that this is the job for me. Unfortunately, it is so much more than that. Above being a responsible teacher, you have to be able to make your superiors like you... You have to also do all kinds of backstage work like marking, setting of papers, planning events, organizing of equipment, CCA management....
MOE, if you are reading this... Please hire some people who specialize on all the additional work so that we teachers can focus on teaching... Anyone can do admin work. Anyone can invigilate. Why hire a graduate, who has been trained for years in her subject just to force her to do admin work? Why waste the energy and precious time of such talents teachers on such tedious, mundane tasks? Why not just hire an O level graduate to do those tasks so that the nurturing, patient and genuinely concerned teachers can focus on doing their job - teaching? They will also be more patient and kind to their students as they will be happier. Please do not waste the energy and talent of precious teachers by making them clerks and admin staff as well....
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